1. Slavery/Indentured Servants

2. Meeting the Demand for Labour Virginia found its farming niche in the growing of tobacco. Tobacco was a labour intensive crop, requiring many workers to help with the harvest. This created a demand for more farmers and workers.

3. Early Settlers Thousands of settlers and farmers streamed into Virginia, lured by the abundant free land and opportunity. This increase in population was not enough to deal with the labour shoratages in Virginia.

4. Sending the Unwanted To provide a work force, homeless children, convicts, poor citizens and farmers who had lost their lands in England were sent to Virginia to work.

5. Indentured Servants Wealthy settlers would hire indentured servants to work their land. Indentured servants worked from four to seven years to pay off their passage across the Atlantic. After the period of indenture was completed, they were free to start their own farms.

6. Growing Homeless Population Many of the former indentures found that they were unable to make a living after working off their indenture. This created a large homeless population and eventually a failed rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon.

7. Slavery In 1616 a Dutch warship brought 20 enslaved Africans to Jamestown. Farm owners bought the slaves and treated them as indentured servants at first.

8. Slavery Continued By 1661 slavery was first recognized in Virginia law. By the next year slavery became a permanent, inherited condition. Indentured servants would no longer be needed as slaves were cheaper and had little to no rights, making it easier to control them.